Our team successfully represented a Kazakh company specialising in the sale of automotive spare parts, components, and assemblies in a dispute with a Russian supplier. The case was heard by the International Commercial Arbitration Court at the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Russian Federation, case No M-23/2026.
The dispute concerned the refund of an unearned advance payment for goods that had never been shipped under the supply contract with our client. The opposing party argued that the contract had been terminated at a personal meeting between the companies’ representatives, where an oral agreement had been reached to repay the unused advance in instalments and claimed that our client had no right to demand a lump-sum refund before the orally agreed deadline expired.
We argued successfully that the parties had never agreed in writing on any repayment schedule, and that any amendments to a written contract must also be made in writing. This position persuaded the court that the witness testimony requested by the opposing party could not serve as proof of oral agreements. Even if such agreements had existed, they would have had no legal effect, as they were not in written form.
